Packing Polish Pottery

One of the many things I'm doing before we leave for Argentina is packing up all of my dishes. I have a pretty good collection of Polish pottery because my mom is the Polish pottery queen. She has been to Poland multiple times and has come back with Polish pottery every time. We are experts at packing and moving Polish pottery and all other fragile items at this point to make sure they can be moved without any issues. In 2010, I worked at Epcot as part of the Disney college program.  I worked at Epcot in Art of Disney and I learned how to properly package art and other fragile materials. I've used that knowledge to help with packing Polish pottery. I'll walk you through how to do it too. It's actually super simple!

Packing Polish Pottery | Supplies

This method works for packing anything that's fragile, it doesn't have to be Polish pottery.

You will need some good packing materials. I really like this kind of corrugated paper, but I also use regular paper, bubble wrap, cardboard, anything that can cushion the fragile object. You don't even necessarily need to go buy packing materials. When we moved from Virginia to Tennessee, we wrapped up all of our Polish pottery using a bunch of random things we already had. We used blankets, coats, towels, clothes, basically anything we could get our hands on that would cushion the pieces. You will also need boxes to put the wrapped pieces in. You don't need to go out and buy boxes for stuff like this. I use shoe boxes, the cardboard from our La Croix, granola bar boxes and anything else I can get my hands on.

Packing Polish Pottery | The Process

You're going to start by wrapping your piece up very, very tight, making sure there are no gaps in the wrapping. You want to make sure if you set the piece down, no pottery is touching the surface where you’ve placed it. If there is a lid, make sure that the lid is also wrapped and secured to this. After the piece is all wrapped up, you're going to get a box the wrapped piece will fit in.

Then, you're going to put a piece of packing material on the bottom of the box. Place the piece inside the box and then make sure the space surrounding the piece is also covered in packing materials. You don't want any air at all available in this box. Once it's in the box and all closed up, you're going to do what I call the "shake test". You're going to shake the box and if you can feel or hear it moving, you need to unpack the box and start over again because it will break. If it passes the shake test, then you know the piece does not move.

For something like plates, we wrap them in multiple layers of packing paper, and then do a layer of bubble wrap. We then put a piece of cardboard between each plate and then cover the top with cardboard and packing materials. This, again, is a really great way to keep things from moving around.

For this round of packing, I packed up multiple pieces to be stacked on top of each other and then put then boxes. If you're going to do that, the best thing to do is either put a piece of cardboard between them or wrap the pieces in cardboard. This adds an additional layer that keeps the pottery from touching. We've learned the hard way that if you have two different pieces that come into contact with each other or can move around within a box, one or both will chip and break. I also pack boxes inside of boxes just to save space and get things all put together. I finish off the packing process by labeling the boxes so I know where everything is when I get back.

Hopefully this method helps keep your precious things safe too!